NEIL Carter blasted Scotland to all parts of Edgbaston as Warwickshire started their C&G Trophy campaign with a comfortable 114-run win.

Put in by the team who embarrassed them with victory at Stratford-upon-Avon last season, the Bears amassed 352 for two - the highest score against Scotland in one-day cricket.

Carter thundered to his first one-day century and finished with 135 from 86 balls with eight sixes and 16 fours.

His sixes, both sides of the wicket, were typically brutal but the strokes around them showed how far Carter's batting has advanced from the hit-or-bust bludgeoning of a few years ago.

The left-hander defended when necessary, clipped the ball over infielders, drove, swept and reverse-swept as well as, to the bowlers' angst, occasionally thrashing a perfectly good ball out of sight.

You could only feel sorry for Ian Stanger who, with Carter on 26, found himself under the mother of all skyers. In fact, he did not quite get under it.

To the delight of the Bears' supporters, after an interminable wait, it turned out Stanger was standing in the wrong place as the ball hit the grass two metres in front of him.

Carter's merciless assault had already ensured the Bears would visit Leicestershire today in high spirits but Nick Knight (128 from 134 balls with three sixes and eight fours) and Jonathan Trott (52 from 43 with four and two) also stuck their snouts in the trough. That pair have hit overdrive straight away this season with 872 runs from ten innings between them.

Such a giant total vindicated the Bears' decision to rest Heath Streak. The captain has bowled 88.3 overs in the first two championship games so, with a crunch four-day visit to Nottinghamshire looming, took a breather while Michael Powell took charge.

Ryan Watson struck James Anyon for three sixes but after he edged Dougie Brown to slip, Scotland slid quietly and colourlessly to defeat.

Stanger chiselled out 51 from 77 balls but would no doubt have swapped every run for having stood in the right place when that Carter top-edge fell to earth.